She has written her taming of Mabel like a thriller, slowly and carefully cranking the tension so that your stomach and heart leap queasily towards each other...A sated bird. A grieving woman. Loss. Reward. Remembering. Forgetting. Life has a pattern, it goes on, and though relentless, this is also a balm.

Though Christopher insists, "This will not be a funny book. I cannot tell jokes because I do not understand them," the novel brims with touching, ironic humor. The result is an eye-opening work in a unique and compelling literary voice.

New Yorker staff writer Kolbert (Field Notes from a Catastrophe) accomplishes an amazing feat in her latest book, which superbly blends the depressing facts associated with rampant species extinctions and impending ecosystem collapse with stellar writing...

Because they're so well-developed, their bizarre paths, studded with moments of absurd humor (at one point, an angry Vanger is described as looking like "an inflated moose") become believable down to their implications for the rest of Blomkvist's life.

By drawing "everything" into her thesis Klein dilutes her over-stuffed book's consistency and coherence; worse, her tendency to demonize more than analyze leaves unaddressed the real-world conflicts and contradictions that make climate policy so intractable.